Well, welcome again. We're filling
in for Norm tonight. We're going to be in 1 Timothy
1 tonight. We're going to be looking at
a verse here. Our text verse is
found in 1 Timothy 1. Howbeit for this cause I obtain
mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering
for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life
everlasting. And that's the title of our message
tonight is, A Pattern for Salvation by Grace Alone. And as we look
at this, Paul, he wrote this to Timothy and he was wont to
write about this subject quite a bit in the New Testament. And it's just a beautiful pattern
of salvation by grace alone. Back in v. 15, he said, this
is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief,
or foremost, or the worst one, or what have you, the number
one sinner. Kind of expresses that sentiment
that that publican in that prayer with the Pharisee said in the
temple, Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner. And that's the way
he viewed himself as. It's just the worst. So the Apostle
Paul here is giving counsel by the Holy Spirit to Timothy. He
declares the purpose of God in His own conversion as a pattern
to them which should believe on Him, on Christ, to eternal
life. And in this pattern, this word
we're all familiar with, a pattern. If you make dresses, you get
a pattern and you lay it out on the fabric. draw a line around
it and then cut it out and it's the same, unless I do it, it's
the same shape as the pattern and then you sew it all together
and voila, you have clothes. So the pattern means a sketch
or a die or a stamp by which something may be used for imitation
or for comparison even. And in this case, it declares
the purpose of the Almighty Sovereign God in His wisdom and for His
glory and honor in saving a people who rightly are not deserving
of mercy, love, and grace. And as we look at the history
of our beloved Apostle Paul here, as noted in the scripture, he
declares himself over and over. We find the things that are typical,
things that to distinguish the people upon whom God has mercy.
And we'll kind of go through some of these Scriptures quickly
here in a little bit. Acts 8-9, 22-26, 1 Corinthians
15, Galatians 1, Philippians 3. In all those cases, he just
declares what a terrible person he was. And you know, we kind
of wonder sometimes. Why does God let things happen
like that? He was this awful ornery to the
church and he helped kill some of them. Some of them that were
going to be sentenced to death, he voted against them and caused
many of them to be arrested and all those things that we'll look
at here in a minute. And all this time he had this view of
himself as righteous in the law, and he dotted all the boxes,
and being of the lineage of Benjamin, of Abraham, and Pharisee of the
Pharisees, and all those things. So, again, we just have to look
at those as a pattern. It just shows us all the many
things that are useless in trying to come to God in salvation.
You know, he thought he was doing God a favor by going and arresting
those Christians and getting rid of them and shutting them
up. So, as we look at this, we note
that Paul after his conversion, he relates that he was elected
or chosen of God, which thing he had previously had an incorrect
understanding of and which he related solely to, again, to
his being a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin. I'm in the chosen
lineage of Abraham, so therefore I'm in that chosen one, chosen
batch. We look at all those scriptures
that he wrote, and we find that certainly he had no merit by
which to recommend him to God. In fact, we find the very opposite
was true. He was at enmity with God and
with God's Christ. And the scriptures we'll look
at here in a minute said he was He did those things that were
contrary to Jesus, contrary against Him. And while he thought he
was in his mind, he thought he was doing God a service. He was
at enmity with God and all the injuries that he inflicted on
the people of God. Those who believed that Jesus
was the Son of God, who came and died for their sins, according
to the scriptures, was in fact for the furtherance of the gospel.
All those people, you know. Paul said that about himself,
that he endured a lot of hardships, and he was stoned, and he was
thrown in prison, and he was whipped and beaten and shipwrecked,
and all manner of awful things happened to him. And after he
was converted, he said, you know, it turned out that all these
things were for the furtherance of the gospel. And I'm sure those
people at the time probably said, well, I don't see what good is
going to come out of this. I don't really feel like being
taken to Jerusalem and whipped and put on trial and thrown in
prison and being maltreated. But you know, God has His purposes,
and He elaborates on those here as we'll see in our Scriptures
tonight. So those people that He was injurious
to probably could say the same thing. Well, it wasn't good,
but it turned out to be for the furtherance of the gospel. We
have their trials and things written down for us right here
in the scriptures. So God had in his Long suffering,
in fact, directed all the steps of this man to accomplish his
divine will and purpose. And that God ordered and arranged
for Saul of Tarsus to intersect with the gospel at an appointed
time, it tells us in Acts chapter 9, he said, when it pleased God
to reveal his his Son in me." And we find that the Gospel was
made effective according to that sovereign timing of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit there. So with that kind of a
bit of introduction, we're going to read this now that I've gone
through most of the stuff. We're going to read a little
bit here from 1 Timothy. And it seems like he can hardly
believe his good fortune when he's writing to Timothy, what
he got compared to what he was blessed with and what he received.
In 1 Timothy 1.12, he says, I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who hath
enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into
the ministry. I'm just the last person that
that should have happened to he said who was before a blasphemer
and a persecutor and injurious But I obtained mercy because
I did it ignorantly in unbelief." You know, that same thing, it's
not an excuse for him what he did, but that same thing could
be written about anybody, everybody. Everything we do in our unregenerate
state, we do it ignorantly and in unbelief. So he's no different
than anybody else that the Lord has mercy on there. And he said,
the great thing was that the grace of our Lord was exceeding
abundant. Even though He did all these
things, and He was all those things, and He caused all those
things, the Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love
which is in Christ Jesus. It just tells you that when God
looked at him, even though he was committing all these heinous
acts and doing all these things that was contrary to Him, God
looked at him through the lens of Christ and said, He's mine
and at the right time, at my appointed time, I'm going to
bring him in and I'll have mercy on him. And so he says, after
he speaks about all the things that
he was and how exceedingly graceful Christ was toward him, he says,
this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am
chief. Well, that was the point of the
whole dialogue, the point of the whole report there. All those things that he did,
Christ was more abundant in grace than he was in doing the evil
that he did. And it's a good thing for us
to remember. And as we bring the gospel to people that, you
know, we're all guilty of something in our former lives and even
now. And yet God has abundant grace
for us and abundant mercy. And he came to save sinners. How be it for this cause I obtain
mercy that in me Christ Jesus might show forth all longsuffering. for a pattern to them which should
hereafter believe on him to everlasting life. Now unto the King, eternal,
immortal, invisible, the only wise God, the honor and glory
forever and ever. Amen. And on this charge I commit
unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went
before on thee, that thou by them might war a good warfare. And so then he goes on to talk
about some folks that were ruiners of the gospel and causing havoc
and to beware of them. But that's not our point tonight,
so we'll just stick with where we were going here, that God
was long-suffering toward him according to his eternal purposes.
And that's the way we have to look at it. You know, when Saul of Tarsus
was at the time of his conversion. And I'm sure you're all aware
of that scriptures in Acts 8, 9 there where he got orders from
the, he was so zealous against the Christians that he went to
the high priest and he got letters of Mark against Christians in
Damascus to have them arrested. And he was kind of going out
of his way to persecute them and have them arrested. And so
when we see him on that road to Damascus, he was not in search
of repentance. He was not remorseful. And in fact, he was pretty boastful
and prideful in his own pretended righteousness. He tells us, you
know, hey, I thought I was a Pharisee of the Pharisees and I had the
right birth certificate and I did all the law. I kept all the law
as keeping the law. He said, I was guiltless. Isn't
that how people's view of themselves is? I'm not guilty of, I didn't
do any of those things, but our heart is deceitful. When I was putting this together
and I was thinking of Mike's lesson here, a week ago or so, and he was
talking about the different people, how they react to the Gospel.
Some people react to the Gospel and the Spirit works in them
and He illuminates their heart, gives them a new heart. And he
read some Scriptures from Acts 2 and 4, I believe, where they
were pricked in their hearts. And the Lord added to them 3,000
souls that day, such as should be saved. And another time it
was 5,000. They were pricked in their hearts.
And then he mentioned that the same message in Key Points was preached to some
other folks. And it says they were cut to
the heart and they gnashed on them with their teeth and they
rejected it and they hated it. And they were so far from being
converted that they were just the opposite. And so those two
areas where we have the effects of the gospel there. And so here
is Paul on this road and all these things happened to him. You know the Lord said in, let's
turn over there to Acts chapter 9. And we'll read just the first Half a dozen or so verses. And
Saul, in verse 1 of chapter 9, Saul, yet breathing out threatenings
and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high
priest. and desired of him letters to
Damascus, to the synagogues, that if he found any of this
way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound
unto Jerusalem. And as he journeyed, he came
near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him a light
from heaven. And he fell to earth, and he
heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, Why persecutest thou
me? You know, and Jesus said, when
He's talking about the... He's dividing up the sheep and
the goats, and He's talking to the sheep, and He says, when
I was hungry, you gave me food. When I was thirsty, you gave
me drink. And when I needed comfort, you took care of that. And they
said, well, when did we do all that? And He says, well, as much
as you did it unto the least of one of these, my brothers,
you did it unto me. And so I think that's applicable
here, where he says, why persecutest thou me? He was on his way to
arrest the disciples. And he said in verse 5, who art
thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus,
whom thou persecutest. It's hard for thee to kick against
the pricks. And that's the same thing that
Mike read in Acts chapter 2 and chapter 4, I think, that they
were pricked in their hearts when they heard the gospel. And
I'm sure that the key difference was that the Lord added them
to the church at that time. In Paul's case, he certainly
heard the gospel when Stephen was preaching. And I'm sure he
was pricked in the heart, but it wasn't enough. He had to have
the work of the Holy Spirit. He had to have the power of the
Spirit there applied to them. And even though he heard the
gospel, and maybe he said, you know what? Kind of sounds right, but nah,
no, it's, I'm right. They need to go. But, you know,
later on, he wrote to the Thessalonians, he says, you know, I'm glad that
the knowing your election of God, brethren, because the gospel
came to you not in word only, but in power and in the Holy
Spirit. So he had a clear understanding
of how that process worked there. And so he said, it's hard for
thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished,
said, Lord, What will thou have me to do? So right there was
a revealing. Later on he says, I'm going to
please God to reveal his son in me. Well, that's right there
where it happened. What will you have me to do?
And the Lord said unto him, Arise and go into the city, and it
shall be told thee what thou must do. And the men which journeyed
with him stood speechless. They heard a voice, but seeing
no man. And Saul rose from the earth. And when his eyes were
opened, he saw no man. But they led him by the hand and brought
him unto Damascus. And he was there three days without
sight, neither did he eat or drink." So that's kind of how
that happened and how that came about. So again, he was on his
way to cause more havoc, but he didn't go through this extended
period of repentance and remorse. And, oh, I'm so sorry. The Lord just applied the gospel
to him in a heartbeat there. All the gospel he'd ever heard.
All the gospel that he'd committed to memory. that he didn't see,
that he didn't understand in the Old Testament, suddenly became
alive to him. And then he went later on and
studied in the desert. He said, I went immediately. I didn't confer with man. I went into the desert and spent
some time with God. And so after his conversion,
who he once boasted in his heritage, his works, his knowledge of Scripture,
now saw himself as the chief of all sinners. He says, God
came to save sinners of who I am chief, the foremost, the leader,
the worst. And Paul then, that he understood
the almighty power that it took to overcome the sin nature and
that he had been made willing in the day of God's power. And
in an instant, he came to know that he did, in fact, deserve
condemnation. But at the same instant was made
to understand what he wrote in Romans 8, 1, that therefore there
is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. I certainly
in Chapter 7, he writes about I thought I kept the law, but
the law killed me and I was guilty of it. And now he came to know
that there was no condemnation for him. And in fact, beyond
that, the Lord made him a messenger for him, made him a minister
for him, enabled him, it says. And imagine being illuminated
in the light of all your sin and guilt all at once, and then
at the same time learn that you're not to be charged with them.
There's no condemnation. That you were, by a miracle of
grace, found righteous in the eyes of God. And that because
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, what He wrote
in 1 Corinthians 15. Paul came to understand that
just as he had seemingly led a hurtful life doing injury to
the people of God and causing havoc in the church, he came
to understand that the things which seemed at the time to be
injurious and calamitous to him in his life turned out to be
for the furtherance of the gospel that, again, as we mentioned
earlier, that that same thing applied to those people to whom
he was engaged against that they probably said, oh man, I don't see the good in this. I
don't understand that. But in faith, they said somehow
God is working this for good to them that love God, to them
who are called according to his purpose. And you know, everything
that happened to Paul, you know, he got arrested. got sent down
to Rome, and if you look in the scriptures, he closes one of
his letters saying, the brothers here at Rome greet you, including
the household of Caesar and some servants that he named that were
from Rome. He says, I guess I was meant
to be here instead of where I thought I should go and do what I thought
I should do. in this pattern that we see Saul
of Tarsus as he was then known as a typical representative of
unregenerate man. He's against God and against
his Christ. Paul himself called it enmity
against God. Hatred deep and serious. And
he didn't really see it that way when he was in his unregenerate. He thought he was doing everything
that God required that was written down in the law. But he said,
I was contrary to the Lord. Turn over to Acts 26. We'll look
at that. Acts 26. In Acts 26, verse 9, and he's
testifying because he's been arrested for preaching the gospel
and the resurrection and everything. And as he's testifying about the
resurrection in Acts 26, 9, he says, I verily thought with myself
that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus
of Nazareth. which thing I also did in Jerusalem.
And many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received
authority from the chief priests. And when they were put to death,
I gave my voice against them." You know, a while back, we had
the lesson on the white stone that the Lord gives His people. And we learned that that was,
in Greek times, in a trial, jurors would give a white stone for
those that were pronounced innocent, and if someone issued a black
stone, they considered them guilty if they got a black stone, a
black bolt as we call it now. So I thought I should do many things
contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. I gave my voice
against those that, when they were put to death, I voted against.
When they said, who thinks that these people should be put to
death, I voted against them. And I punished them often, every
synagogue, and I compelled them to blaspheme. and being exceedingly
mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities."
Can you imagine somebody coming to Jerusalem to worship and they've
been saved and then they're trying to praise God and He surrounds
them and has them arrested and beaten and causes them to blaspheme
and tries to make them ashamed of what they've said and believe.
and then follows them even home when they go back to their hometown.
He follows them back and persecutes them some more. And then, boy,
what a thing that he had on his conscience until the Lord revealed
himself to him and said, you know, he had his purpose in it. Ecclesiastes
8.4 says, No one can say to him, what doest
thou? And Daniel recorded that in the
book of Daniel, the same thing. No man can say unto him, what
doest thou? He has a purpose. And even though
at the time it may seem bad to us at the moment, These people that were executed
probably didn't think anything good was going to come out of
that. But you know, the one minute they were there and one minute
they were with the Lord, and they were instrumental in accomplishing
His purpose. And I'm sure they look at it
that way afterwards. But you'd have to look at it
that way through the eyes of faith to go there and submit
to that. He said, well, I don't know what
God's purpose is, but I trust it. I have faith in Him, and
if this is what He wants for me, that's the way it'll be. He said in Galatians 1.13, he
was well known for his his axe for being ornery to the
church. In Acts 9.13, when the Lord appeared
to Ananias, Ananias says, we've heard of that guy. We're up here
in Damascus, and we've heard about him and all the heinous
things that he has done to the brothers. And in Galatians 1,
verse 13, when he's writing to those Galatians, he says, For
you have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion,
how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and wasted
it. He said, it's a well-known fact. And then he says, here
I am, the beneficiary of grace for a pattern according to the
Lord's purpose. He was consenting to the death
of Stephen. He made havoc of the church. He had believers
cast in prison. He breathed out threatenings
and slaughter against the church. The believers were afraid of
him because of all the evil he did. He had a reputation for
destroying them who called on the name of Jesus, it says in
Acts 9.26. And he declared that he had persecuted
believers unto death there in Acts 22 verse 4 and 5. And again, he believed he was
doing God a favor by engaging in these things contrary to the
name of Jesus of Nazareth and compelled them to blaspheme and
voted to have them put to death. And three more times in Corinthians,
Philippians, and Timothy, he admitted to persecuting the church. And we just read in 1 Timothy
here where he said, I was a blasphemer. I'm sure he didn't consider himself
a blasphemer in his former life. I never said anything blasphemous
against God, but I denied his son. I denied the gospel. I denied all of it, and that
was, turns out, blasphemous. And so for a pattern, these things
that they seemingly demonstrate the extreme attitude
of unsaved men to God. It just points out that Christ
came to save sinners of whom he said, I am chief. And for
a pattern, Paul was able to write, though, that even in spite of
his horrific behavior, he had obtained mercy. For a pattern,
he was able to write that where sin did abound, grace did much
more abound." Romans 5 20. For a pattern at his conversion
the Lord revealed to him the truth of election and the sovereign
purpose of God who works all things according to the counsel
of his own will. You know, he learned that he
was a chosen vessel. Unto God to bear his name before
the Gentiles and the kings and the children of Israel acts 915
For a pattern he was a at last able to understand the gospel
of the covenant of grace in the Old Testament And he wrote so
many things about the gospel in the Old Testament Practically
everything he wrote came from from the Old Testament with eyes
with a view toward Christ in the Old Testament He says all
the scriptures testified of him. And he wrote in Romans 9-11,
for the children being not yet born, neither having done any
good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election
might stand not of works, but of him that calleth. It was said
unto her, the elder shall serve the younger. As it is written,
Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Quoting Malachi
there. And then he reminds Timothy of
that very thing in chapter 1, verse 18, and in 2 Timothy 3.15,
he says, From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures that
are able to make you wise unto salvation. But it takes that
application of the Spirit to look at them and see anything
but just words and things to do and rules to follow. So for a pattern, Paul was a
demonstration that God chose by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe and that we actually, we believe
according to the working of His mighty power. He wrote this to
the Ephesians. Chapter 1, verse 19. He says,
We believe by the working of His mighty power which He wrought
in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. What a powerful
thing to all these things He experienced first hand and was
able to bring them to us and bring us Scriptures that we love
to read about the power of God and salvation. And for a pattern, I imagine Paul
certainly counted the preaching of Stephen foolishness while
he held the coats of those who stoned him. When Stephen gave
that sermon in chapter 7 of Acts, and he started at the beginning
and he went all the way through to what were modern times then
and preached Christ through all that. Paul at that time didn't see
any Jesus in there. And he says, boy, you got the
wrong slant on all those Old Testament. That was just history
stuff that tells about us and that we used to count our lineage
back and all those things and how God is ours only. And you
sure had a misunderstanding of that. Well, it turns out, he
said, I was the one that didn't understand all that. For a pattern we can't find any
greater example than Paul of the long-suffering of God as
he waits as the husband, and for the early and the latter
reign. Man, God was patient with him while he did all those things. But he had his purpose in them,
and we might never know in this world the extent of them. For
a pattern Paul was able to write, I obtain mercy, that in me first
Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering for a pattern
to them which should hereafter believe on him to everlasting
life. 1 Timothy 1.15 So for a pattern, if God can save one like Paul,
he can save anyone. And all those people that said,
boy, we don't want Paul coming here because it's not going to
be good. Well, it turned out that it was
being worked for good. So perhaps we know some whose
sins don't seem to be as extreme as those displayed by Paul. I'd like to end with a quote
from Charles Spurgeon about this particular passage, and he said,
the bridge of grace, which is strong enough to hold an elephant,
will surely hold a mouse. So even though we're not maybe so terrible in many physical
activities as Paul was, we all share with him the same unbelief
in our unregenerate state. And that is the most serious
problem of all, is unbelief. So may the Lord add blessing
to this message that for a pattern, to them which should hereafter
believe on him to everlasting life, the gospel. So thank you
for your attention.